Status and recent developments in diffractive neutron optics at the ILL

✍ Scribed by P. Courtois; T. Bigault; K.H. Andersen; J. Baudin-Cavallo; K. Ben Saïdane; M. Berneron; A. El-Aazzouzzi; D. Gorny; W. Graf; T. Guiblain; R. Hehn; E. Hetzler; C. Menthonnex; B. Mestrallet; C. Dewhurst

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 164 KB
• Volume: 385-386
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0921-4526
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physb.2006.06.043

✦ Synopsis

We present the present status and recent advances in diffractive neutron optics at the ILL. Very high-quality copper crystals with intrinsic mosaics of the order of 1 0 can now be produced which is of interest for the reproducible production of higher-mosaic anisotropic crystals for neutron monochromators and potentially for a gamma-ray Laue lens for astrophysical applications. Recent progress in the growth of mosaic germanium crystals now allows us to produce high-quality crystals with a controllable and anisotropic mosaic of up to several degrees. Polarising supermirrors of Fe-Si can now be produced with critical angles of up to 4 times the critical angle of natural nickel. Recent applications include a solid-state S-bender, a transmission polariser for small-angle scattering and a polarising monochromator for 8.9 A ˚neutrons for the production of ultra-cold neutrons.